CFP: [Cultural-Historical] Marxism East and West: MLA 2009 Special Session

The advent of globalization has brought Marxist critical theory to acrossroads, as production, consumption, distribution, and labour areconstellated in a worldwide network of power relations that seem toundermine the traditional critique of capitalism formed in the mid-nineteenth-century. But even as the post-Cold War rhetoric of thecapitalist West trumpeted the end of communism (or, Ã¡ la Francis Fukuyama,the End of History), the twenty-first is already being declared â€œTheChinese Century,â€ and China, after all, remains a putatively Marxiststate. In this panel we wish to explore the challenges of and to Marxism,while focusing attention on the distinct aspects of Marxian thought in theEast and the West. By sharing ideas on the role and future of Marxism inthe world today, we hope to highlight the geographical specificity as wellas the historical grounds for Marxist criticism in the age ofmultinational capitalism.

Please submit a 300-word abstract and brief CV to Robert Tally(robert.tally_at_txstate.edu) and Rita Wu (wu16_at_purdue.edu) by March 6.